


look'd up in perfect silence at the stars

by allourheroes



Series: the conquest of spaces [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Family, Gen, Holidays, K/S Advent Calendar, M/M, Post Mpreg, Postpartum Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 07:39:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2724143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allourheroes/pseuds/allourheroes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From single parent to bondmate.</p>
<p>[K/S Advent 2014]</p>
            </blockquote>





	look'd up in perfect silence at the stars

**Author's Note:**

> I know I haven't updated this series in forever! I apologize for that. This is the, um, _winter holidays_ that would've happened in [heartbeat](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1057726), as well as the one after. If I've messed anything up in the chronology, let me know! (This might need a bit of tweaking still. Also, my previous artist and I are _trying_ to get a real sequel done.)
> 
> If you haven't read the first one, here's a bit of background: Jim and Spock met as teenagers and hooked up/mind melded a lot and then Spock moved away and Jim found out he was pregnant. They both end up in Starfleet and meet later and accidentally bond. Um. The end.
> 
> (I should never be allowed to summarize things.)
> 
> Title from Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer."

**2249**

Jim holds the child in his arms reverently. She's just over a month old now and still so tiny.

Unless he looks very carefully, he could swear she's fully human. She grabs his finger and he misses her desperately even though she's right there in his arms.

It isn't the same as it was.

He's sixteen and now he has a baby. He sighs and jiggles her. He's already devolved from calling her Georgia to just George or even Geo.

"She's quiet, huh?" Winona says and holds out her arms in question.

Jim is exhausted but it takes every ounce of his willpower to force himself to hand Georgia over. "She didn't used to be."

His mother frowns. She doesn't quite understand how exactly they had interacted before Georgia was born. She had gone through pregnancy, through birth, but it hadn't been as if Jim could communicate with her while he was in there. Not in the same way, at least.

He used to hear Georgia think, in that undeveloped way of children. He's glad that when he looks at her he doesn't see Spock. He thinks about this for a moment as his mother holds his child.

Winona clears her throat. "It's past midnight," she whispers, gaze darting up to meet his.

"Huh," Jim says, because he's been dealing with a newborn for a month and can't fathom the significance.

His mother is putting Georgia down in her crib then and Jim is drawn to her, wants to pick her back up and keep her as close as he possibly can instinctually, as if he can mimic how it had been before her birth. Winona's hand touches his shoulder and he looks at her in question.

"Got something for you," she says, then adds with a gentle smile, "Both of you." She holds up a hand and Jim waits as his mother leaves, lets his hand fall into the cradle idly and he brushes the backs of his fingers against Georgia's impossibly soft cheek.

Winona returns, suppressing a grin, and hands a nicely wrapped package over.

Jim blinks, mouth gaping. "I didn't get you anything. It just...totally escaped my mind."

"You just had a baby, honey," Winona reassures him. "It's fine. What gift could you possibly give me that's better than Geo?" She looks down at Georgia and places another gift next to the cradle. "We'll open it with her in the morning when she wakes up."

Jim smiles and ends up stifling a yawn. "Thanks, mom."

She wraps an arm around him as they both stare down at Georgia.

He pretends he isn't wishing that Spock would be there with them.

**2250**

Jim is panicked as his mom comms him from her current assignment. She should've been back already, but there had been complications.

Even the comm ends up cutting out before they're done talking.

"Miss you," she had managed. "We'll celebrate on your birthday. I promise."

He tries not to think about how his father died in space.

"Guess it's just you and me, Georgie," Jim tells the baby, who doesn't gurgle but rather looks up at him curiously.

Every day she looks a little bit more Vulcan.

**2251**

Georgia likes to run on her unstable little legs and she looks joyous, giggling until she falls down.

Jim laughs now. The first time, he had been so worried but Bones and his mother had assured him a little fall like that wasn't a big deal. "You're gonna hurt yourself," he tells her anyway and she stops to look up at him calmly.

She blinks at him and in that simple movement he thinks she says that she is aware of any and all possible repercussions.

Her ears are more pointed now and he can't help remembering that he saw Spock just days ago. Tomorrow is a Terran holiday and Jim is glad for that. It'll be a distraction from his woes--however pathetic he feels wallowing in them anyway.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair before he hears the door. Winona has gone to get something or other at the store and Bones has gone to see Joanna for the little he can. Jim is going to be so angry if Bones has been sent back already. He barely gets any time with his daughter as it is.

It's Winona who is back, however, her arms laden with groceries. She tells him the traditions are ancient, but that doesn't mean they can't be followed. It's more difficult here in the city where technology is ten steps ahead of everything they had back in Iowa, but his mother is nothing if not intelligent. She can find anything.

"Mom, that is way too much stuff," he tells her.

"What little you know," she returns teasingly and puts her things down. "Where has Georgie run off to now?"

Geo giggles and runs towards her grandmother. "Gram!" she shouts happily and it's so different from when she had glared at him this morning and said "dad" in her most serious tone. To be fair, he _had_ been the one who was being rather ridiculous at the time.

"You're so fast, baby," Winona tells Georgia as she scoops her up and kisses her little hands. "I got a treat for you."

"You spoil her, you know," Jim says to his mother, but he's grinning.

"I got a treat for you, too," she tells him and kisses him on the cheek. "Now how 'bout you both help me with dinner?"

By the time Bones returns, there's a bounty of food and _almost_ all of the messes have been cleaned up.

Bones raises an eyebrow and Jim blames Georgia, knowing that McCoy has too much of a sweet spot for the kid to be angry with her.

**2252**

Jim is going to be twenty soon and he's never been so keenly aware of the differences of now and then, turning sixteen and having a massive crush on the only Vulcan he'd ever even seen, as he is with Spock here.

Spock doesn't look older, but he had always looked rather mature for his age. Perhaps that had been his stoic façade, however, as when Jim remembers running around with Spock or when it would be just the two of them in Spock's room, Spock had let down his guard, had looked young and sometimes even _happy_.

Spock looks happy now as he watches Georgia tear open his gift in delight, small as it may be.

Jim doesn't recognize the object, but Spock kneels down to meet Georgia at her level, taking it from her and turning it this way and that as he explains how it works.

She stares at him in rapt fascination and Jim would be jealous if it didn't please him so much. Spock's hands are so gentle, just as they had been with him years ago in Iowa with one of Frank's bruises on him.

**2253**

Bones acts annoyed when Spock stays with them for days on end around the holidays, as if that hadn't become the status quo in the preceding months.

Just because they're bonded doesn't mean everything is perfect and that they're now the perfect family unit.

But Jim and Spock and Georgia _are_ a family, with Winona there fawning over her granddaughter, who patiently shows Winona all of her preschool projects as if they were important scientific research.

His phone buzzes and Jim, Spock, Winona, and Georgia all look to him. His nerves are getting the better of him, but they all look so hopeful that he smiles reassuringly. "She'll be here any minute," he tells them, his accent gone thick.

"She better be," Jim murmurs and Spock's face is very purposely blank. A minute later, Jim is glaring at his Vulcan and Bones is amused, although he usually tells them they're being rude when they communicate through their link. That part of their bond is fairly new, McCoy knows.

There's a sound outside the door and Bones approaches it cautiously, trying to not be disappointed if it isn't her. He opens the door and breathes, "Joanna."

They're all there now, his family, and he's never been happier...even as he shouts at Kirk and Spock to stop holding hands later that night-- _my god, man, not in front of the kids_.


End file.
